Balding hits the jackpot with a dream dynasty
On her sketch show, impressionist Tracey Ullman spoofs Clare Balding as a horse-harassing workaholic. It’s neatly observed because between hosting horse racing, Crufts and her myriad other commitments, it can sometimes seem that Balding is rarely off our screens.
That was especially the case this week: Balding was busy at Wimbledon until Sunday. On Tuesday, she helmed a documentary about the history of women’s football. By Wednesday, it was over to Holland to anchor coverage of the Women’s Euro 2017 football tournament, while Thursday marked her chat show on BT Sport.
Balding was also the latest celebrity to climb her family tree in this week’s Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC One). Frankly, it’s a wonder she had the energy. The BBC revealed this week that it pays Balding between £ 150,000 and £ 200,000 but boy, does she earn it.
Blue-blooded Balding has a wellknown lineage stretching back to Oliver Cromwell and the Earls of Derby. Here she took the road less travelled, investigating her more enigmatic ancestors – and it made for a fascinating journey.
Balding was keen to find out whether her great-grandfather, Conservative MP Malcolm Bullock, was gay. “It would mean that I’m not the only one,” she said. What she uncovered was an affecting tale – following the death of his much-loved wife in a riding accident, he embarked an “intense friendship” with Thirties artist Rex Whistler. Bullock was finally able to be himself in arty circles but ended up with his heart broken all over again. A raconteur and socialite who partied with Evelyn Waugh, John Gielgud, Winston Churchill and the Mitford sisters, he sounded rather fun.
The second half of the film found Balding in America exploring her racehorse-training father Ian’s roots. Tracing back from her professional polo-playing grandfather, Balding was dumbfounded to hear that she was descended from a businessman who made millions from baking powder, a Manhattan property mogul and the earliest Dutch settlers in New York. “Wow. What’s Dutch for ‘bingo’?” she exclaimed.
Like many participants before her, Balding failed to remain unmoved by her family history. “I said I wouldn’t cry,” she admonished. “Pull yourself together, come on.”
This was a heart-warming slice of social history, full of horses, Hunter wellies, quilted bodywarmers and jolly hockeysticks. Balding was as engaging as ever and her delight was infectious. Now please, take a day off – you’re making the rest of us look lazy.
Many a hormonal, sulky, door-slamming teenager might have daydreamed about it, but I Shot My Parents (BBC One) portrayed the grim reality.
Previously shown on BBC Three, this dark story of Nathon Brooks – a 14-year-old from Washington State who, in 2013, took a revolver from the gun cabinet at his family home and shot his mother and father three times apiece in the head while they slept.
Miraculously, both survived. Could they forgive their son, who was now serving 15-and-a-half years in prison for assault with a deadly weapon?
This film heard how the couple were coming to terms with the incident and also from Brooks himself, as he strove to understand his actions. As the prosecuting attorney said: “This case is not a whodunit, it’s a whydunit.”
It turned out that Brooks – a sporty, popular boy from a seemingly normal middle-class family – was angry about being grounded and having his video game console confiscated. Unbeknown to him, he was also suffering from a depressive disorder, which left him feeling detached.
The film culminated with Brooks’s parents visiting him in prison. This was a remarkable portrait of love, stoicism and resilience. It was handsomely filmed with aerial shots, bleak landscapes and lingering close-ups. No narration was used, with the story told solely via first-person testimony and factual captions.
However, it was just another entry in the ever-growing catalogue of American true-crime documentaries, which can often seem a world away and teach us very little. Ghoulish, too, with their replays of distressed 911 calls and clips of bloody crime scenes.
In the US, five parents are killed by their children every week. The solution of tighter gun control seems thunderingly obvious. Until America can bring itself to tackle it, these crimes will keep happening and these documentaries will keep getting made.
Who Do You Think You Are? ★★★★ I Shot My Parents ★★★